And then, at the team meeting on Friday night, much swag was handed out to the liver-spotted and grizzled pro masters racers, each of whom received his new shades and fancy socks and knit caps and other cool goodies with sweaty, grasping palms.

Which was nicest of all, perhaps.

Unntil we sat down on Saturday night for a lecture from Perry Kramer about “Why Your Giant Bicycle is So Kick Ass.”

There is no “I” in TEAM

However, if you add an “e,” there’s most definitely an “Eat me.” And truth be told, for years and years and years, my attitude towards carbon bicycle frames has been just that: “Eat me.”

So when I learned that Giant would be the new gorilla sponsor for the team’s bicycles, I shrugged. “Great. Another nameless Taiwanese manufacturer with no soul, cranking out machine-made bikes at a rate of 1,000 per hour.”

Having ridden Specialized for the last four years, I’d given up on the Eurocentric, hand-crafted mythology that used to accompany bicycles when they were made from Columbus tubing, by hand, in some Italian or Belgian village. I’d accepted that the future of cycling was nameless, interchangeable, soulless, plastic knockoffs made by assembly line workers pushing “start” and “stop” buttons on the Carbon Frame Goop-a-tron: Lighter, faster, stiffer, more aerodynamic…but spiritually dead.

And after experiencing the superiority of the carbon frame over steel, I’d made peace with the trade-off. Carbon frame isn’t more soulful. But it is mo bettah.

You may be wrong (but you may be right)

When Perry stood up to make his presentation, I was ready to let the words flow into the right ear and out of the left one, making minimal contact with the thinking organ in between. The only tingle of curiosity I had was this: Would he explain why my Giant TCX ‘cross bike rode so well?

Although I’m a complete clod when it comes to bikes and the way they perform, and my ignorance is trumped only by my cluelessness of why they perform the way they do, from the first time I rode my TCX I’d been blown away by the way it handled. Of course, I chalked it up to the fact that I’d never raced or ridden a ‘cross bike before, and this was just how ‘cross bikes rode.

What piqued my curiosity, though, was the fact that when I’d had to put road wheels on the TCX and use it for road riding while my Venge was having its radiator replaced and its water pump serviced, the Giant ‘cross bike had handled better and climbed better than the Specialized road unit. What was that all about?

We are the sum of our prejudices

It turns out that I’m not simply dumb about bike handling and performance characteristics and why bike frames are the way they are. From the beginning of the slide show I found out that I knew even less than I’d already thought I didn’t know, which was everything.

For example, I thought you made a carbon bike frame the same way you make a toy set for a Happy Meal, by pouring a bunch of carbon fiber goop into a mold. The mold cools, you slap on a decal and some wheels, and boom! There’s your new Specializedgianttrekwillierscannondalepinarello carbon bike.

I’ll spare you the technical details, mostly because I don’t understand them, but there’s no big Goop-a-tron at the Giant factory, with little people pouring in buckets of goop into a cauldron and stirring it with goop sticks until it’s ready for molding. Here’s the shocking fact about how Giant bikes are made: By hand.

More precisely, by 32 pairs of hands, as sixteen is the number of people involved in the meticulous, piece-by-piece construction of each bike. The bikes are painstakingly built over a mold sort of like those horrendous, smelly, ugly, badly painted papier-mache things you had to do in 3rd Grade art class. Strips of carbon fiber are placed in a specific order over the mold, then hardened with resin which is heated and pressed in an oven.

The secret to the way a carbon bike rides lies in the shape of the mold, the type of carbon fiber used, the size of the fiber strips, the number of the fiber strips, the order in which the strips are placed onto the mold, and most importantly, the “secret sauce,” or proprietary resin mixture that bonds and later hardens the carbon fiber.

Changing any of these variables changes the way the bike behaves. The best combination, or the design + technique, is what makes a carbon frame world class or a spongy piece of bubble gum.

The reason my TCX handles so well

After listening to Perry’s awesome explanation and being imbued with extensive tech specs and production process explanations, I can sum it up like this: “The TCX rides so well because it’s fuckin’ bitchin’ rad and badass.”

Hopefully, once I get on the Giant TCR road frame, I’ll have an equally sophisticated explanation for it, assuming it rides as well as my TCX.

Changing perceptions

In addition to learning that there was no Goop-a-tron, and no slave labor pouring carbon into a cauldron, I learned why Giant has flown under my radar screen for so many years despite being one of the biggest manufacturers in the world for composite frames, and being the only large manufacturer that controls the entire production process from weaving the carbon fiber to slapping the decal on the finished product.

I had heard countless times that Giant made the frames for Cannondale, Trek, and numerous other big name brands. “Why would they do that for other brands unless the other brands had some kind of superior design that Giant couldn’t equal? Aren’t they using the other dudes’ designs in their bikes? And if so, why buy a bike with Giant on it, when it’s a knock-off of someone else’s superior work?”

Kind of like my Goop-a-tron thinking, this had it back asswards at best, completely wrong at worst. Giant does make bikes for other frame makers according to the specs of those makers.

But it makes its own bikes according to its own top-secret, proprietary specs because Giant’s secret sauce and lay-up processes are better. It sounds kind of like a sex manual, you know, secret sauce and lay-ups, but it isn’t.

The result of all this is simple:

Giants are lighter (which doesn’t mean squat to me, and sounds kind of funny when you put it like that).

Giants have less flex in the bottom bracket (which, with the stiffer frame, means they track better, which explains the feeling of being on rails, which I like muy mucho a lot takusan viel hen hao).

What this means for you, the consumer

Actually, it doesn’t mean anything. Whether your bike is made of steel or bamboo or carbon fiber (as long as it’s not one of those horrible stomping bike-running monstrosities that combine the worst things about cycling with the worst things about running), as long as you’re riding it and enjoying it, that’s all that matters. Giant, Midget, Specialized, Generalized…whatever.

The guys who are great athletes and who get paid to ride bike brands were winning before that sponsorship and they’ll be winning when they change teams. The bike doesn’t make the rider, or even the ride. It’s just the catalyst, because, you know, the ride is inside you.

However, if you’re going to buy a new bike, and if you’ve never considered Giant as being among the top tier of the very best hand made bikes ever built, you’re doing a disservice to the dollar you’re about to spend and a disservice to your legs. You can also be assured–take it from the Wankmeister–that there’s no Goop-a-tron. Never was. Never will be.

Like this:

Related

§ 35 Responses to A Giant weekend

Love my Giant. Had it narrowed downtown a Cannondale, Specialized or Giant before I did test rides and the Giant won hands down. Better stiffness, comfort, and handling. I had expected the Specialized to win but nope.

Owned and ridden lots of top of the line steel frames in the late 70s and 80s. Ridden some current ones. Great road feel but prefer the stiffness and handling of a good carbon frame. 2nd would be titanium like my Moots. But I dont want to look down and see the bottom bracket swaying. The frame stiffness also means great handling because you can feel right where the bike is going.

Seems Giant also makes the better Kool-Aid. Maybe your Venge was built on a Monday or a Friday, if they have those over there, but it seems amazing that a cyclocross frame would make a better road bike than S’s top of the line. Possibly your riding style prefers attributes built into a good cross frame more than those designed into the Venge which might have been designed with focus on delivering Cavendish’s manmissile sprints. I was liking my cross bike over my road bike for years, but then an SL3 Tarmac changed things; lightness and stiffness were way better, but a shorter top tube and possibly other geometry changes led to a far more comfortable bike fit. I have good reason to buy a Giant when I scrounge cash for a next bike; foremost is that they seem to do a great job of supporting local racing clubs.

While the vast majority of the Wankmeister’s readership probably know this already, in order to avoid even the mere perception of editorial impropriety, it should be noted that Giant currently sponsors the WM’s team.

With that said, I have been dropped numerous times by said members of said team aboard said Giants and they all seem to love their bikes.

I’m just glad that Giant listened to Rabobank’s top riders and made their frames closer to classic geometry as a result, I still don’t like te look of their extremely sloping frame sets that ONCE used to race, efficient or not, looks are important !

I learned a lot about their production process at our team seminar. They control the entire process, beginning with the actual weaving of the Toray carbon into fiber on a loom. What impressed me most, though, is the change in the culture of the company. They’ve finally understood that making a fantastic frame is only half the battle: The other half is engaging with the cycling culture, and making that part of who they are. Specialized has done this for years, but it’s a real watershed for Giant, and the dividends are already paying off. I won’t be on a Giant road frame for several months yet, but I wasn’t kidding about preferring the TCX to my Venge. Kook-Aid or not…!

In 50 years, someone will still be enjoying my old titanium framed, welded up by real hairy chested shaved legged american guys who actually know how to weld ti, race bike…and they will still say how badass it is. While all those fancy shmancy carbon bikes will have long since been ground up into fibers and pellets for the latest Boeing aircraft or BMW suv… Though I would still like to ride one a dem plastico fantastico bicycles!

Oh…and the Women 3/4 leaders took exception to being caught by the Men Pro/1/2 first chase group. The Womyn decided to show the boys some clean wheels, so they re-passed. Going up the big climb. Then they made it stick. It was a thing of beauty…

TRU-Jax Showed up to race as well, you guys did a great job at PCKRR. I was able to stay for almost all the races and it was exciting for a RR. Normally you just see on bit and that’s all but with the number of laps you could really see the race take shape. On top of that you could see the fight as the DH went up to the finish. it was a great race congrats on the win.

I was checking out your bike on the ride this morning. The thing is sweet. There’s a point where the technology really doesn’t matter any more. It’s all about how stoked you are on the new equipment. Expensive, cheap, whatever – as long as you get stoked on it – you ride more, you ride happier and in the end you ride better.

Actually, it can be old equipment too. I got given an old steel bike. I love it. It makes me want to ride more. Then when I get back on the carbon bike, I get stoked on that again too.